Lost Boy

by Christina Henry

Once I was young, and young forever and always, until I wasn’t. Once I loved a boy called Peter Pan. Peter will tell you that this story isn’t the truth, but Peter lies. I loved him, we all loved him, but he lies, for Peter wants always to be that shining sun that we all revolve around. He’ll do anything to be that sun.

Peter didn’t sleep much, and when he did it was just a quick nap. He would not waste a bit of his life in slumber, even though his life was already longer than most, and he hated the way the rest of us succumbed, dropping like biting flies in the summer heat while he pestered us for one more game.

“You should have left him by the crocodile pool,” Peter said. “Then his crying wouldn’t wake you up.”

I said nothing, because it wasn’t worth my breath. Peter never lost an argument—and not because he wasn’t wrong; he was, and pretty often too—but because he never got tired. He’d keep coming back at you no matter how right you were until you threw up your hands and let him win just so you’d have some peace.

I wondered if that were better, to die before I became something withered and grey and not wanted.

“They’ve been here as long as I have,” Peter hissed. “We had a treaty! And you, you fool, you broke it and now they’ll come for all of us.” I went very still. “What treaty, Peter?” Peter’s eyes shifted away. “How can we have a treaty with monsters, Peter? How can you have a bloody damned treaty that none of us have heard about before when we don’t even know how to talk to them?”

And then I was alone, and glad that he was gone. I’d never been glad at Peter’s absence before, and something inside me seemed to shift. My legs hurt like fire for a minute, and then it was over, and I distinctly felt that I was taller than I’d been a moment before.

“I told you to take care of Charlie,” Peter said with exaggerated care. “Look after him! He’s very small and you’re very big. I never told you to lunge at him with a knife.” I saw then how Peter had done it, that he’d likely said those precise words—“take care of Charlie.” This was how he’d set Nip to the task instead of doing it himself—so he could deny it all if Nip failed.

The others were at the very top of the rocks, strung in their long snake tail. Just then Billy stopped, and it seemed he had just noticed the pirate ship. He pointed at it, and the others peeked around him. There were six of them in that row—Slightly, Billy, Terry, Sam, Jack and Jonathan. The cannon boomed again, and a second later they were all gone.

“To see. You said,” Sal said. “But you can’t keep him small forever. He’s got to learn to survive here, and so do I. And you can’t always be alone, Jamie.” You won’t be alone, Jamie. I’ll stay with you always. Peter had said that to me, a long time before, and he’d smiled at me and I’d followed him.

Was this, I wondered, what it felt like to be a grown-up? Did you always feel the weight of things on you, your cares pressing you down like a burden you could never shake? No wonder Peter could fly. He had no worries to weight him to the earth.

“This isn’t a wonderful place for boys to play and have adventures and stay young for always. It’s a killing place, and we’re all just soldiers in Peter’s war.”

All children grow up, or they die, or both. All children, except one.

Peter wanted me to stay a boy, but it was Peter, finally, who made me a man.

Was this, too, part of growing up? Was it facing the bad things you’d done as well as the good, and knowing all your mistakes had consequences?

“It’s not such a wonderful thing, to be young,” I said. “It’s heartless, and selfish.” “But, oh, so free,” Nod said sadly. “So free when you have no worries or cares.”

“The island made me,” he continued. “The island made me, and the island keeps me alive. And every drop of blood spilled here keeps me whole and young forever, just like it did for you, when you believed in me. But when you stopped loving me, when you stopped believing—the island let you go, because the island knows your heart and so do I.”